Virat Kohli meets Miss World Manushi Chhillar, his reply to her question gets praise

Virat Kohli (L) and Manushi Chhillar at the award show. (APH Images)

Virat Kohli has been breaking records at will in his cricket career for quite some time now. He is captain of the Indian cricket team in all three formats of the game and is also a big inspiration for the youngsters. He is already number two in the list of most centuries in ODIs and only behind Sachin Tendulkar.

At a award function on Thursday, there was another admission by a youth icon that Kohli has inspired many and will continue. There was also a question for him. It was asked by the recently crowned Miss World Manushi Chhillar.

“You are one of the best batsman in the world today and you’ve been such an inspiration. You’ve really given back to the society. But there are a lot of young people who draw inspiration from you. How would you like to give back for children, especially in the world of cricket?” she asked.

Kohli’s reply was received with a thunderous applause and it was a reply expected from the captain. Here is what he replied.

“Well, what’s very important to understand is when you do what you do and you express yourself on the field, it has to be genuine and it has to be from the heart. Otherwise if people find out that you’re trying to pretend, then they can never connect to you. I’ve never tried to be anyone else. I’ve always been myself; I always mention that people had a lot of issues with how I was, how I conducted myself, but I had never had any problems with that.”

“The moment I started to think that I need to change, is the only time I changed. Everyone has to go through a mutual process to be where they get to in life to become more mature. What’s very important to understand is one should never lose their own identity, character and personality because if you try to be someone else you can never succeed, and you can never inspire others.

“The one thing that I believe in is that there’s something much stronger that’s making us do what we do. We ourselves don’t have the ability to go out there, score runs and take wickets all the time. We must believe that everyone has a plan and that plan has been executed for them at the time they are in, and all they can do is work hard, no one can change the plan, what we can do is work hard and be honest with ourselves.”